JUDAISM.
In the 19th century prosperous Jewish
communities grew up as building spread along Bayswater Road and later northward to Maida Vale.
Bayswater synagogue, on the northern edge of the
district and perhaps more accurately described as in
Westbourne Park, was established because of a drift
of Jews from Bloomsbury and the City. (fn. 40) In Maida
Vale the Anglican church of St. Saviour, Warwick
Avenue, although in a rich area, was said to be poor
because so many residents were Jews. (fn. 41) Jewish
prominence perhaps owed more to wealth than to
numbers: fewer than Roman Catholics and each of
the three leading protestant nonconformist sects,
Jews accounted for 422 church attendances in 1886 (fn. 42)
and for 1,826 out of a total of 31,331 attendances in
1902. (fn. 43) There were three synagogues and several
other Jewish institutions in Paddington in 1986. (fn. 44)
Bayswater synagogue, at the west corner of
Chichester Place and Harrow Road, was consecrated
in 1863. It was built with grants from London's
Great and New synagogues, whose joint management committee made way in 1866 for a local committee, and the first seat holders included the banker
Samuel Montagu, later Lord Swaythling (1832-
1911), and members of the Rothschild family. In
1870 Bayswater joined the Great, New, Hambro,
and Central synagogues to form the United Synagogue. The building, designed in red brick in the
Gothic style by N. S. Joseph, originally held 341,
with a further 334 in the ladies' gallery, but the seating was soon extended. Some of the richest members,
from Tyburnia, transferred to the New West End
synagogue after 1879, with the result that by 1890
more than half of those attending Bayswater synagogue came from Maida Vale. Although numbers
had fallen by the time that the site was taken for the
Harrow Road flyover, litigation compelled the
United Synagogue to promise to rebuild on land
provided by the G.L.C. (fn. 45) From c. 1965 services were
held in the hall of the Lauderdale Road synagogue (fn. 46)
until a flat-roofed building in contemporary style
was erected in 1971-2 in Kilburn Park Road. (fn. 47) As
Bayswater and Maida Vale synagogue, the congregation remained a constituent of the United Synagogue
in 1981. (fn. 48) The premises were later bought for the
new Jewish Preparatory School, although high holy
day services were still held there in 1986. (fn. 49)
The New West End synagogue, St. Petersburgh
Place, was an offshoot of Bayswater synagogue and
consecrated in 1879. (fn. 50) Designed by Audesley &
Joseph (fn. 51) as an imposing building of red brick with
terracotta decorations, seating 800, it had an ornate
west doorway flanked by twin bell-towers with
copper domes. From 1957 it adjoined the Herbert
Samuel centre in Orme Lane, which included a
small synagogue used for children's services. The
congregation, drawn from Tyburniz and its westward extension beyond Lancaster Gate, was the
richest of all those belonging to the United Synagogue before 1914. (fn. 52) In 1964 the New West End
synagogue challenged the authority of the United
Synagogue in a vain attempt to secure a liberal
scholar, Dr. Louis Jacobs, as minister. After the
board of management had been forced to resign,
seceders formed the New London synagogue, which
held its first service in Lauderdale Road and by 1970
had secured premises in Abbey Road, St. John's
Wood. (fn. 53)
A Spanish and Portuguese synagogue was registered in 1896, (fn. 54) land at the north-east corner of
Lauderdale and Ashworth roads having been leased
from the Paddington Estate in 1895. (fn. 55) The building,
next to a Jewish orphanage, was designed by Davis
& Emanuel in red brick and white stone, with a
shallow central dome and a cupola. (fn. 56) It remained a
Sephardi synagogue in 1981, when the Sephardi
Burial Society and Welfare Board, the Sephardi
Kashrut Authority, and a religious library were at
no. 2 Ashworth Road. (fn. 57)
Maida Hill Beth Hamedrash was registered on the
ground floor of no. 131 Elgin Avenue in 1944. (fn. 58)
Affiliated to the Federation of Synagogues in 1945,
it was admitted as a constituent synagogue in 1948
and was known as Emet V' Shalom synagogue from
1949. The original premises, after internal alterations, seated 130 in 1982. (fn. 59)